So, not content with having stayed in approximately eight different places in the last four months, or with moving house across the ocean, just when our container has been unpacked and the pictures and curtains hung, Willem and I decide that our pad is too pricey and we need to move again. But we'll take it easy, we agree - after all, moving is a huge undertaking and the end of the year is upon us. We'll just start keeping an eye out for a suitable place that is still close to Maya's school, because Maraetai rentals - especially in our new revised price range - are pretty scarce. Perhaps we'll find something in a couple of months' time. In the meantime, I'd start slowly looking around for a job too.
A week later, we signed a new tenancy agreement and I accepted a post at a clinic in Otara, South Auckland. Eish!
We have been incredibly lucky with how things have worked out. Our old landlords, Helen and Jake, were very kind about our giving notice, and even offered us the use of their small high-sided trailer, perfect for piling boxes, for the move. They also helped us hang the curtains back up and clean the house. I happened to hear of a parent at Maya's school who needed a house, so I linked them up with Helen and everyone was delighted with the new arrangement. Our new landlords, Benita and Quinten, are a young couple with a new baby who had just started renovating their house when they discovered they were pregnant. After the birth, they moved into a flat below their parents' house (which, conveniently, is in the road just behind our old place) so that she could stay home with the baby and they could make up the difference by renting out their house. They also offered us a large flatbed trailer, perfect for moving furniture, and told us we were welcome to start moving things before the official start of the tenancy as the house was standing empty and they were quite concerned about us moving so close to Christmas. They even invited us for Christmas dinner - the Kiwis get very distressed at the thought of people being alone over Christmas. (Chronic introverts that we are, we declined, but were very touched by the gesture.) So now we were set. Now there was just the minor issue of actually moving our enormous number of possessions one kilometre down the hill. By ourselves.
Willem and I don't seem to travel light through this life, despite our best zen-like attempts to live simply. So it's just as well we're both pretty robust people. (Must be all that wine.) We lugged, we heaved, we dragged, we shuffled, we trekked and trailed up and down the stairs and the sloping garden path and got half the big furniture moved on one fine Sunday, with the children ensconsed in front of the TV and the computer, respectively, held there with dire threats and warnings of the dreadful consequences of getting in our way. Then in the week in between, every evening we loaded the car and moved boxes and clothes and potplants, with the children now positioned in front of the TV in the new place with takeaway suppers. It was a tough week, with many late nights for us and the children, and panic about where to put the stuff and when to fit in all the chores and trying to manage all the end-of-year parties and prizegivings and various administrative tasks.
On the Saturday we finally had some much-appreciated help in the form of our friend Jake and Ivan, a colleague of Willem's, who came by to help move the rest of the big furniture. Miranda prepared a feast of a lunch for all of us at her house, and by the evening, the beds were made, the plates were put away, the appliances were working, and we were in! Aaahhh. And then the doorbell rang, and who should it be but Quinten and Benita, bearing a housewarming gift of flowers and something they thought might help to make us feel at home: a milktart and a bag of koeksusters! My flabbergasted face must have said it all, because Benita explained that she had a friend with a bakery who knew what South Africans like. Sunday saw us back at the old house scrubbing and tidying and moving the last few forgotten boxes, and we hit a slight hitch when the moving company, which was supposed to have come to remove the boxes and packing material still from the SA move and never did, finally arrived - while we were out. They left again, and we were faced with clearing the garage of a truckload of cardboard boxes and bubble wrap - with no trailers. Willem phoned Jack, who brought his bakkie (sorry, pickup), and they dumped it all in our new garage. I was not privvy to Willem's Monday morning phonecall to the moving company, but by Tuesday my garage was mysteriously emptied of packaging. Who's Duh Man? It was not, unfortunately, empty of boxes. Full boxes. Of stuff that we don't know what to do with and are unwilling to unpack. Those remain, to be processed on some other day, hopefully before the winter damp turns our books and carpets to unrecognisable mouldy piles.
So here we are in our new house. Initially, we were not very excited about it. Although it was newly renovated inside, and lovely and bright and airy, it is on the main road and squashed between its neighbours, over whose less-than-tidy yards we gaze and into whose living rooms our windows peer. There is also a tenant in a cottage in the garden, so we share a driveway and look out over her house too. Not exactly a study in quiet seclusion. But the longer we are here, the more we like it. The house is old, with lovely wooden door frames and a villa-like feel, the but interior is modern and elegant, with clean, simple lines. The spacious deck looks out over the green belt behind the house (the selfsame Jungle Across the Road, but now viewed from the other side), and if you mentally photoshop out the jostling bristle of aerials and ugly tin rooftops alongside us, the view of the Auckland skyline in the distance, just above a turquoise strip of sea, is lovely. We have lots of storage under the house, and a little garden (although to our chagrin there are no stairs from the deck to the garden, which means you have to go all around the house from the front door to get to the lawn). The traffic from the road does bother me a little, the house is poorly insulated (hot in summer, freezing in winter) - but there is a fireplace, and a corner bath, and a separate toilet, and a separate indoor laundry. But all together, we look forward to happy entertaining on the deck, short, easy walks to the school and the corner shop (the dairy) and an only slightly longer walk to the beach. And we look forward to our friends and family coming to visit!
And at the end of January, I start my new job. I'll be working in a 20-bed inpatient adult male clinic for what were always previously considered chronic throw-away-the-key types. They haven't had a psychologist for about three years and so don't have any specific plans for what they might do with one now that they have one. But they're excited because they've been trying out all kinds of out-of-the-box therapy techniques, such as turning the isolation rooms into staff rooms, and the smoking room into a gym. And lots more cutting-edge stuff. So, would I please be able to write my own job description? And decide what I would like to do? And yes, of course you can work part-time - what hours would suit you? And yes, you'd be appointed as a senior psychologist with lots of opportunity for merit promotions and increases, and yes, you'd get specific extra training and supervision in neuropsychological testing, rendering you eminently employable anywhere in the country, or indeed the world. No, sadly, you won't get your own office - there's no space at the clinic at present. Or even your own computer - we'll have to write motivations for that (after all, this is a state institution). But you will be working with a highly motivated team of funny, committed, passionate people. Where they don't micromanage and where one might just feel that the loss of the freedom of working in private practice is not so bad after all.
So enter the New Year, a time of great promise and lots of (more) new beginnings. Viva 2009, in which we all get slim and fit and healthy and happy and rich and start, maybe, to feel that we are making this place home.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
A Kiwi Christmas
Christmas happens slightly differently in New Zealand than in South Africa. True, I'm not mourning the absence of a 'winter wonderland' like some of my expat British acquaintances, but I did notice that when I bought the groceries for our big Christmas Eve dinner with Lize and Cindy, turkeys were remarkably scarce, and obscenely expensive (ranging anything between $45 and $70 - that's around R400 to you Saffers). However, there was plenty of pork. Robust roasts, huge hams - although none of the gammons we're used to getting in SA. And there were dozens of ducks, and naturally loads of lamb. Since none of the enormous hams would fit into my fridge (which is so large we had to remove a panel from the built-in unit to fit it into our new kitchen), I finally settled for what looked like the netted gammons I am used to; only here it was called a 'boiling bacon'. I cooked it up and glazed it, and although delicious, it didn't quite taste like home.
It started off with great promise. The weather was fine, the sea was calm and sparkling, the sunlight was warm and golden. It was a perfect crisp, still morning, with the pohutukawas radiant in green and crimson. Willem pumped up the boat with amazing gusto, considering he'd had a paltry five hours' sleep; the children were enthusiastically kitted out in their new life jackets; and I had actually remembered to bring the camera. With the shutter clicking away, the kids leapt in and Willem pushed the boat into the surf (remember, no big waves here on the East coast), and off they went, looking very cool - the very model of a modern happy family. The first glitch came when Willem discovered it wasn't so easy to row a boat, what with the current and the swell and the requirements of coordinating the oars and manoeuvering the heavy-loaded craft with five hours' sleep and no experience. And that it is even harder when you have two children clamouring for a turn at the oars. And especially when one of those children insists on standing up in the boat and trying to snatch the oar from you over your shoulder, hollering in your ear and unbalancing the boat most alarmingly. And then you suddenly become aware that the rocks are actually rather close by, and there are a couple of them under the fairly shallow water too, and, as luck would have it, they are all covered with razor-sharp oyster beds. Suddenly it dawned on the landlubbers why so few people have rubber boats, a thought that struck at precisely the same moment that Willem heard a scraping under the hull and a soft, bubbling pfffffffft noise.
The other thing about Christmas in Kiwiland is that everyone takes their holiday in January, when it is warmest; which means the schools break up just before Christmas, work continues right up until Christmas Eve. So Christmas shopping has to happen after hours, and there's little time for baking mince pies or browsing leisurely around the shops. That being said, there are heaps of discounts and sales on just before and after Christmas, and the Boxing Day Sale is something the locals wait for with beady-eyed anticipation. The Kiwis are sale-mad. They go into a frenzy over the possibility of a bargain. Of course, so do poor immigrants. But after vainly trying to negotiate the rabid hordes on Boxing Day in a hot and crowded shopping centre, with miserable whiny children in tow, while the sun was shining and the beach was beckoning, Willem and I decided that there are some Kiwi customs that are just not worth adopting. We'll trade the turkey for a roast duck; we'll sacrifice the gammon for a smoked haunch of ham; and I certainly am very happy to adopt the Kiwi custom of decorating the entire exterior of the house with lots of twinkly lights from early in December - although I draw the line at acquiring, as is popularly done, a copious and kitsch collection of plastic Santa, snowman and reindeer figurines that light up and dance and generally reduce otherwise respectable gardens, roofs and windows to a Christmas equivalent of a Southern trailer park populated by ceramic cactuses and porcelain garden gnomes.
But our first Christmas so far away from home was, all in all, pretty good. Cindy and Lize brought loads of loot for the midgets, admirably choosing quantity over quality, and we cooked up a feast and played post-prandial card games with a competitive passion worthy of any Kokot get-together. And on Christmas Day the back-to-back TV movies, accompanied by scrumptious and abundant leftovers and bowlfuls of popcorn and chocolate, invoked a serene slothfulness that precluded any thought at all, including memories of home and mourning the absence of loved ones. (The homesickness hit a little harder once the leftover platter had been licked clean, and the reality of facing the January holiday without friends, without babysitters, without family get-togethers, with heaps of housework and no respite in the form of parties, braais, grown-up movies, or babysitting exchanges.) But on Christmas Day, we weren't worrying about the housework. Because on Christmas Day, we had presents.
Scooters for the children, a drum for pining Willem (unfortunately nothing as authentic as those we left behind), and a Field Guide to New Zealand Birds for Penny were joyously received. But the angel on the top of the tree must have been the rubber dinghy that Father Christmas left under the tree for the family, complete with child-sized life jackets and oars. Maya had indeed had a boat on her long and comprehensive Christmas list, and had spent the previous week reflecting on how - and whether - FC would manage to deliver such a large gift. So when St Nic hit upon the cunning plan of delivering an inflatable, the desire to go immediately to try it out was irresistable. Since the offspring had forced us awake before 6am, the presents had been opened and copious cups of pick-me-up coffee drunk before eight. Thus it was that few people were around to witness the landlubbers' first attempt at seafaring.
A fact for which we are humbly grateful.
It was very funny to watch Willem hurriedly paddling for the nearest rocks so he could lift out the kids before the little boat collapsed in the gently bubbling water, yelling to me to wade out to help carry the children and the boat back. So after a mere three minutes on the water, the family expedition struck out for home, where we consoled ourselves with mince pies, more coffee and the rest of the loot. Later Willem fixed the puncture and we decided that next time, we'd try the other beach, where there were fewer rocks. And go early in the morning. After all, there's no need for witnesses.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Six O'Clock Views
When Alan Paton chose the phrase "Ah but your land is beautiful" for the title of his book, I am guessing that he was not referring to the highveld in winter. But barring the flat dreariness of the urban Witwatersrand, he's not wrong, of course. South Africa has an exquisite and incredibly diverse natural beauty. And so it is with some surprise, therefore, that I find myself completely in awe of, and indeed dedicating an entire post to, the splendour of the New Zealand landscape.
I think this in part because I grew up mainly in the highveld, where my daily perambulations were accompanied by visions of grey grasses and flapping plastic bags along barbed-wire fences, or lampposts amply festooned with grisly billboard headlines. The beauty of South Africa was something I enjoyed almost exclusively on rare retreats to the sea or bush, or in my garden after I recklessly squandered gallons of precious water on it. Here, however, I live in a particularly pretty coastal village, and any trip to town or further afield takes me on an undulating journey through green hills peppered with pine and pohutukawa, and salted with sheep. And even in town, there are no billboards on lampposts, ever; there are generous swathes of vivid flowerbeds, daisy-studded grassy banks alongside neat walkways, and even the ugliest industrial areas have trees softening their edges.
I miss very much many of my native ways of life, the familiar accents, the aroma of boerewors, the acacia-silhouetted, cicada-chirping veld, inexpensive coffee shops, the ease and excellence of Woolworths (food) and Ackermans (children's clothes), our dark self-mocking SA humour, and the company and support of my family and friends. And I hate that things are so expensive here, and our earnings so much more meagre, relative to the cost of living, than they were in South Africa. And there are days - usually when I have laboured the entire morning over laundry only to discover a hidden cache of crumpled malodorous clothes under Maya's bed; there are days - often when I spend hours dusting and mopping and tidying only to have the resident trolls immediately flip order to anarchy the second they burst through the door - there are days when I wonder if we have done the right thing by uprooting ourselves so drastically halfway across the world.
The richness of our lives at the moment does not reside in the accumulation of a nice little nest egg; nor of the experience of exotic travels; and certainly not in the joy and cameraderie of a kuier with old friends. But often, when I feel particularly sour and lonely and down and destitute and broken, ruminating bitterly that I have been irrevocably impoverished by the move, it is then that I notice the blazing ruby and garnet sunsets, the emerald pastures, the diamond-sparkling, crystal-encrusted midday seascapes, the golden clarity of the light, the mother-of-pearl and silver beaches, the ocean all sapphire, turquoise, and jade. And in that moment I embody every cliché, because suddenly I feel obscenely
filthy
stinking
rrrrich.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Moving
A short note, for the fans. We're moving again. Yes, I know. After all the fuss I made about finding the perfect house and everything. But what can I say? After two months of orienting ourselves in the country, I have a better handle on our actual expenses and needs, and Wlm and I have concluded that although we love our wooden cabin with two bathrooms, two living areas and a sea view, and even after drawing up budgets and projecting expenses to the best of our ability, and even after I start working, our lovely house is costing us a little too much moola. And in a debt-free world of nest eggs and financial stability, even the most beautiful abode with the most stunning view is subject to new rules.
So we're moving to the bottom of our very steep hill (yay), closer to the beach (yay) but losing our view, our second bathroom, our second living area, and the warm, well-insulated comfort of solid timber (boooo). Why we are moving now is that we just happened to find a suitable house - and houses in our village are hard to come by. We love living in Maraetai, by the sea and out of the city; and the house we have found is quite respectable - newly renovated inside, rather ugly on outside, but nothing that some potplants and creative gardening won't be able to fix. It's on the main road, which is not great, but it's very close to the school (600m away!). And - here's the thing - it's $130 (R600) a week cheaper than we're paying at present. Quite a persuasive argument. But I must say, the idea of moving AGAIN just after we've unpacked is a tad sobering.
So we're gonna be moving on the 20th December - right before Christmas - shoot me now! We have really been lucky though: in our present house we were able to use the existing furniture and crockery etc until our container arrived, and in the new house, we are fortunate to be able to start moving our stuff slowly, because it is standing empty and the landlords have no problem with us carting stuff across before we actually take residence (as the crow flies, it's a whole 600m from our current place, but you have to go up and down the hill so it is quite an effort). I felt very bad for our present landlords as they have been exceedingly kind to us, but I am grateful that we were able to stay in a lovely place while we got settled and sorted out our actual (vs imagined) budget and expenses. I'm also very grateful that we managed to find another suitable place nearby, so the children and the routine won't be disrupted to much. Ah, the joys of emigration!
Anyway. Our NEW address is 109 Maraetai Drive, Maraetai, Auckland, NZ 2018. (Kerrin! Take note!) Will send juicy posts and pics later. But now, Willem has loaded Whale Rider on the DVD (good NZ fare and part of our cultural education), so cheerio for now!
So we're moving to the bottom of our very steep hill (yay), closer to the beach (yay) but losing our view, our second bathroom, our second living area, and the warm, well-insulated comfort of solid timber (boooo). Why we are moving now is that we just happened to find a suitable house - and houses in our village are hard to come by. We love living in Maraetai, by the sea and out of the city; and the house we have found is quite respectable - newly renovated inside, rather ugly on outside, but nothing that some potplants and creative gardening won't be able to fix. It's on the main road, which is not great, but it's very close to the school (600m away!). And - here's the thing - it's $130 (R600) a week cheaper than we're paying at present. Quite a persuasive argument. But I must say, the idea of moving AGAIN just after we've unpacked is a tad sobering.
So we're gonna be moving on the 20th December - right before Christmas - shoot me now! We have really been lucky though: in our present house we were able to use the existing furniture and crockery etc until our container arrived, and in the new house, we are fortunate to be able to start moving our stuff slowly, because it is standing empty and the landlords have no problem with us carting stuff across before we actually take residence (as the crow flies, it's a whole 600m from our current place, but you have to go up and down the hill so it is quite an effort). I felt very bad for our present landlords as they have been exceedingly kind to us, but I am grateful that we were able to stay in a lovely place while we got settled and sorted out our actual (vs imagined) budget and expenses. I'm also very grateful that we managed to find another suitable place nearby, so the children and the routine won't be disrupted to much. Ah, the joys of emigration!
Anyway. Our NEW address is 109 Maraetai Drive, Maraetai, Auckland, NZ 2018. (Kerrin! Take note!) Will send juicy posts and pics later. But now, Willem has loaded Whale Rider on the DVD (good NZ fare and part of our cultural education), so cheerio for now!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
On pirates, parties and turning 'free'
They say the first year as an expat is the hardest, not least because this is when the uprooted little family must weather all the anniversaries and celebrations alone for the first time. For us, the first of these was Max's third birthday, which draws to a close as I write.
I was determined to create a celebration that would bring a sense of normalcy and settledness to our lives - in short, we needed a party. After all, no self-respecting three year-old will fall for a birthday devoid of candles and balloons and at least some decent noise. The problem was a distinct lack of available preschoolers with whom Max was willing to share his cake and toys. Not to mention the obnoxious presence of the ubiquitous boxes lurking in the corners of the new house. So Willem and I downed some mental Red Bull, worked till midnight either unpacking boxes or stuffing them unopened into the attic, bribed the few people we know with promises of lunch if they came and played children's party games, and asked the neighbour's little son over, to boost the number of children present to three.
On Sunday morning (yesterday), after days of no sleep, and hours of shopping, planning and baking, I told Max that today was the grand day of his party. He grunted politely without averting his gaze from the TV, where Peter Pan was enthusiastically engaged in sending Captain Hook over the side of his ship into the waiting jaws of the happy crocodile. Then Willem appeared with a bunch of balloons. The response was electric.
"Ballooooons!" hooted Max, leaping up and leapfrogging around the room. "It's my party! Yayayayay! Where my candles? Do I get cake? When are the friends coming?"
The friends duly arrived, clutching an assortment of gaily wrapped swords, shields, beach paddles, balls, puzzles and other most desirable objects, the games were played, and Max was delighted with the crocodile cake (in deference to the Peter Pan and pirate craze) that his mother and sister spent an enjoyable hour decorating - at first, we thought, rather tastefully, and then, since the vile-green icing refused to run out, with an increasing flair for the florid.
In all, it was a pleasant affair, and we were very grateful that we had been so fastidious about hunting a good house. The weather was rotten, with gale force winds and bad-tempered clouds exchanging insults around the house all day long. Although the rent is horribly high, we managed to have an indoor children's party with no breakages, happy kids and still enough space for the adults to mingle and chat.
Today, his actual birthday, I had promised to take the birthday boy on a boat ride. He has been angling, if you'll excuse the expression, to go boating since we arrived in this sea-ensconced country, and we thought it would be a lovely birthday treat. Unfortunately, the South Africans failed to take the fickle NZ weather into account. And when the weatherman predicted gale force winds and stinging rain for the whole of Monday, I couldn't very well go back on my word to take Max on a ferry boat into town. He was kitted out in his new Peter Pan outfit (complete with long-sleeved woolies on beneath it), jaunty cap and feather, and sword tucked into his belt, and nothing was going to stop him. And nothing did. He relished the tipping and heaving of the boat (not noticing that his mother was turning the same colour as his outfit), complained that he wasn't allowed to lean over the side of the ferry to see the sharks and crocodiles and whales and dolphins and fish and penguins he knew were crowding around the hull, strutted down Queen Street with such impish self-assuredness that he scored free 'lollies' (NZ for sweets) from every smitten waitress whose path he crossed, and demanded fish and chips and ginger beer for lunch AND supper.
So I reckon Max has found his Neverland. And it is an island. And it has magical flying ships (albeit ferries that lurch over waves), and crocodiles (in cake form), and although he declares himself now to finally be a 'big boy' (especially after we turfed the nappies), I don't think he's too worried about growing up. And so it was that with happy, happy thoughts and pixie dust, Max - and his very Wendy-like big sister Maya - lifted his homesick, tired parents to get them airborne, so that we too could feel that we, in our new beautiful island country, are slowly, slowly, 'turning free.'
I was determined to create a celebration that would bring a sense of normalcy and settledness to our lives - in short, we needed a party. After all, no self-respecting three year-old will fall for a birthday devoid of candles and balloons and at least some decent noise. The problem was a distinct lack of available preschoolers with whom Max was willing to share his cake and toys. Not to mention the obnoxious presence of the ubiquitous boxes lurking in the corners of the new house. So Willem and I downed some mental Red Bull, worked till midnight either unpacking boxes or stuffing them unopened into the attic, bribed the few people we know with promises of lunch if they came and played children's party games, and asked the neighbour's little son over, to boost the number of children present to three.
On Sunday morning (yesterday), after days of no sleep, and hours of shopping, planning and baking, I told Max that today was the grand day of his party. He grunted politely without averting his gaze from the TV, where Peter Pan was enthusiastically engaged in sending Captain Hook over the side of his ship into the waiting jaws of the happy crocodile. Then Willem appeared with a bunch of balloons. The response was electric.
"Ballooooons!" hooted Max, leaping up and leapfrogging around the room. "It's my party! Yayayayay! Where my candles? Do I get cake? When are the friends coming?"
The friends duly arrived, clutching an assortment of gaily wrapped swords, shields, beach paddles, balls, puzzles and other most desirable objects, the games were played, and Max was delighted with the crocodile cake (in deference to the Peter Pan and pirate craze) that his mother and sister spent an enjoyable hour decorating - at first, we thought, rather tastefully, and then, since the vile-green icing refused to run out, with an increasing flair for the florid.
In all, it was a pleasant affair, and we were very grateful that we had been so fastidious about hunting a good house. The weather was rotten, with gale force winds and bad-tempered clouds exchanging insults around the house all day long. Although the rent is horribly high, we managed to have an indoor children's party with no breakages, happy kids and still enough space for the adults to mingle and chat.
Today, his actual birthday, I had promised to take the birthday boy on a boat ride. He has been angling, if you'll excuse the expression, to go boating since we arrived in this sea-ensconced country, and we thought it would be a lovely birthday treat. Unfortunately, the South Africans failed to take the fickle NZ weather into account. And when the weatherman predicted gale force winds and stinging rain for the whole of Monday, I couldn't very well go back on my word to take Max on a ferry boat into town. He was kitted out in his new Peter Pan outfit (complete with long-sleeved woolies on beneath it), jaunty cap and feather, and sword tucked into his belt, and nothing was going to stop him. And nothing did. He relished the tipping and heaving of the boat (not noticing that his mother was turning the same colour as his outfit), complained that he wasn't allowed to lean over the side of the ferry to see the sharks and crocodiles and whales and dolphins and fish and penguins he knew were crowding around the hull, strutted down Queen Street with such impish self-assuredness that he scored free 'lollies' (NZ for sweets) from every smitten waitress whose path he crossed, and demanded fish and chips and ginger beer for lunch AND supper.
So I reckon Max has found his Neverland. And it is an island. And it has magical flying ships (albeit ferries that lurch over waves), and crocodiles (in cake form), and although he declares himself now to finally be a 'big boy' (especially after we turfed the nappies), I don't think he's too worried about growing up. And so it was that with happy, happy thoughts and pixie dust, Max - and his very Wendy-like big sister Maya - lifted his homesick, tired parents to get them airborne, so that we too could feel that we, in our new beautiful island country, are slowly, slowly, 'turning free.'
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Doing the local motion
The most famous non-indigenous New Zealand animal is most certainly the humble ovis aries, or sheep. And surely any blog on New Zealand worth its mutton needs to mention something about said sheep. So here goes: there are about seven sheep to every person in new Zealand. (There are something like fifteen possums to every person, but no one likes possums, who are decimating the endemic flora and thus also the kiwis who depend on the habitat, so we won't mention it again. Kiwis are also famous here, but you never see any kiwis. Firstly, they're nocturnal. Secondly, they're endangered. There are three species of kiwi, but only one is found on the North Island, and even there, mainly only in zoos. So we'll stick to sheep.)
There are sheep everywhere. While we were staying in Mount Albert, in the middle of the city, we would pass green paddocks of little white sheep wedged between the houses (the paddocks, not the sheep). Driving from one part of Auckland to another, one passes - you guessed it - fields of sheep. This is the only country I have been to where a regional nature reserve consists of a narrow band of indigenous coastal forest bordered by, yup, vast rolling expanses of pastures filled with sheep (really - Omana Regional Reserve, Maraetai). The lamb-and-mint hamburgers are delicious. The many Indian immigrants are in their element concocting lamb curries. There is a burgeoning trade in sheep soft toys. Mutton is the same price as chicken in the supermarkets.
Sheep tend to feature in a number of our favourite activities, such as walking through the lovely Omana Reserve, which is within easy walking distance from us, and sightseeing in the area. Two weekends ago, we decided to sally forth and take in one of the many weekend
activities that we so enjoy about living in Auckland. This time we decided to go to the Clevedon School Agricultural Day. Clevedon is a very pretty farming village close to Maraetai, slightly inland, and is famous for its vineyards, among other things. Clevedon School has a policy that all its students must at some point raise from birth a farm animal of some sort. So we went to see the children show their pet chickens, pigs, goats, calves and lambs (and pop into a wine-tasting store while we were there, naturally). It was delightful to see these tots in enormous gumboots run over the playing field with a spindly little lamb on a leash trotting docilely behind. There were a lot of gumboots around. Must be a farm thing. Some folk even dressed up their lambs for the occasion - we saw lots of woolly jumpers (he he). Some of the chickens on show were nearly as large as their tiny owners. My children were entranced. The day took it in turns to rain, then shine, then rain again, determined no doubt to give the immigrants a thoroughly authentic New Zealand experience. No one paid any attention to the rain, nor to the biting artic wind. (It has not taken me long to 
resolve never to go anywhere in this country without a hat and scarf. Anything less would be asking for pneumonia. I might even have to start considering gumboots.)
Authentic New Zealand activities always seem to include a coffee stall selling serious coffee - namely 'flat whites', made with espresso, hot water and milk and a thin layer of foam (delicious), and 'hotdogs', which are not what we know, but are something more akin to what I imagine Terry Pratchett's somehwat shady character, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, might have sold: a sausage on a stick, dipped in batter and deep-fried (not so delicious). The Kiwis are big on fried food (er, sometimes literally - especially the Maori and Pacific Islanders). They love chips, which can also be bought anywhere (usually served in a polystyrene cup), and there is pretty much never the option of ordering grilled chicken or fish instead of the fried version at takeaway shops or cafes. There is a concerted effort on the part of the government to help the populace improve their eating habits - lots of radio and magazine adverts to this effect - but I haven't noticed that it is sinking in. This is disappointing for us, especially given Willem's hypertension and Maya's insulin resistance. Shopping in the supermarkets is also a challenge in this respect: food labels are very precise in listing possible allergens, but hardly ever mention the GI rating, there is no such thing as a healthy bread roll (I really miss Woolies!), and the only place I could source Xylitol (natural, low-GI sugar substitute) was from an online mail order company.
New Zealanders do other things slightly differently too. The way they speak, for instance. The accent does take some getting used to. Words and phrases also mean different things: 'Cheers' means thanks, not goodbye. A dairy is a corner store. Sweets of any description, even chocolate, are called lollies. And many, many Maori words are incorporated into everyday speech, newspaper and TV news items, and even journal articles, on the assumption that we all know what pakeha, mana, iwi and whanau are. Maya is learning a smattering of Maori at school, but can never remember enough to teach me when she gets home. I am picking up bits and pieces here and there, though, and learning as much as I can about Maori culture from library books etc. Maori culture seems similar in some respects to African traditionalism, with a focus on tradition, heritage, rituals, ancestors, spirituality and extended family bonds. Also not surprising is the erosion of traditional culture by westernisation, with the resultant rise in associated social problems such as unemployment, domestic violence and crime. Genealogy is very important to Maori people and is called whakapappa - in Maori, the 'wh' sound is pronounced as an 'f', so this word is pronounced fuck-a-pappa. I kid you not. There are many, many words that begin with 'whak', which makes the language sound extremely crude to the unaccustomed English ear. Another common word part that South Africans might find interesting is kaka, which pops up frequently too...
So we are getting a truly well-rounded education – from learning about different cultures and new languages, to identifying sheep kaka in the fields. (Must definitely get gumboots.) And since I started taking Max to a mothers’ playgroup on Friday mornings and got to meet a bunch of mothers (mostly Brit ex-pats, interestingly) whose favourite activities are also drinking copious quantities of coffee and wine (depending on the time of day), life is looking up. The weather is even improving – we had our first sunny Sunday braai yesterday, on our stoep with the sea view, using real charcoal (no gas for the boere, fanks), and – naturally – loads of lamb tjops.
There are sheep everywhere. While we were staying in Mount Albert, in the middle of the city, we would pass green paddocks of little white sheep wedged between the houses (the paddocks, not the sheep). Driving from one part of Auckland to another, one passes - you guessed it - fields of sheep. This is the only country I have been to where a regional nature reserve consists of a narrow band of indigenous coastal forest bordered by, yup, vast rolling expanses of pastures filled with sheep (really - Omana Regional Reserve, Maraetai). The lamb-and-mint hamburgers are delicious. The many Indian immigrants are in their element concocting lamb curries. There is a burgeoning trade in sheep soft toys. Mutton is the same price as chicken in the supermarkets.
Sheep tend to feature in a number of our favourite activities, such as walking through the lovely Omana Reserve, which is within easy walking distance from us, and sightseeing in the area. Two weekends ago, we decided to sally forth and take in one of the many weekend
activities that we so enjoy about living in Auckland. This time we decided to go to the Clevedon School Agricultural Day. Clevedon is a very pretty farming village close to Maraetai, slightly inland, and is famous for its vineyards, among other things. Clevedon School has a policy that all its students must at some point raise from birth a farm animal of some sort. So we went to see the children show their pet chickens, pigs, goats, calves and lambs (and pop into a wine-tasting store while we were there, naturally). It was delightful to see these tots in enormous gumboots run over the playing field with a spindly little lamb on a leash trotting docilely behind. There were a lot of gumboots around. Must be a farm thing. Some folk even dressed up their lambs for the occasion - we saw lots of woolly jumpers (he he). Some of the chickens on show were nearly as large as their tiny owners. My children were entranced. The day took it in turns to rain, then shine, then rain again, determined no doubt to give the immigrants a thoroughly authentic New Zealand experience. No one paid any attention to the rain, nor to the biting artic wind. (It has not taken me long to 
resolve never to go anywhere in this country without a hat and scarf. Anything less would be asking for pneumonia. I might even have to start considering gumboots.)Authentic New Zealand activities always seem to include a coffee stall selling serious coffee - namely 'flat whites', made with espresso, hot water and milk and a thin layer of foam (delicious), and 'hotdogs', which are not what we know, but are something more akin to what I imagine Terry Pratchett's somehwat shady character, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, might have sold: a sausage on a stick, dipped in batter and deep-fried (not so delicious). The Kiwis are big on fried food (er, sometimes literally - especially the Maori and Pacific Islanders). They love chips, which can also be bought anywhere (usually served in a polystyrene cup), and there is pretty much never the option of ordering grilled chicken or fish instead of the fried version at takeaway shops or cafes. There is a concerted effort on the part of the government to help the populace improve their eating habits - lots of radio and magazine adverts to this effect - but I haven't noticed that it is sinking in. This is disappointing for us, especially given Willem's hypertension and Maya's insulin resistance. Shopping in the supermarkets is also a challenge in this respect: food labels are very precise in listing possible allergens, but hardly ever mention the GI rating, there is no such thing as a healthy bread roll (I really miss Woolies!), and the only place I could source Xylitol (natural, low-GI sugar substitute) was from an online mail order company.
New Zealanders do other things slightly differently too. The way they speak, for instance. The accent does take some getting used to. Words and phrases also mean different things: 'Cheers' means thanks, not goodbye. A dairy is a corner store. Sweets of any description, even chocolate, are called lollies. And many, many Maori words are incorporated into everyday speech, newspaper and TV news items, and even journal articles, on the assumption that we all know what pakeha, mana, iwi and whanau are. Maya is learning a smattering of Maori at school, but can never remember enough to teach me when she gets home. I am picking up bits and pieces here and there, though, and learning as much as I can about Maori culture from library books etc. Maori culture seems similar in some respects to African traditionalism, with a focus on tradition, heritage, rituals, ancestors, spirituality and extended family bonds. Also not surprising is the erosion of traditional culture by westernisation, with the resultant rise in associated social problems such as unemployment, domestic violence and crime. Genealogy is very important to Maori people and is called whakapappa - in Maori, the 'wh' sound is pronounced as an 'f', so this word is pronounced fuck-a-pappa. I kid you not. There are many, many words that begin with 'whak', which makes the language sound extremely crude to the unaccustomed English ear. Another common word part that South Africans might find interesting is kaka, which pops up frequently too...
So we are getting a truly well-rounded education – from learning about different cultures and new languages, to identifying sheep kaka in the fields. (Must definitely get gumboots.) And since I started taking Max to a mothers’ playgroup on Friday mornings and got to meet a bunch of mothers (mostly Brit ex-pats, interestingly) whose favourite activities are also drinking copious quantities of coffee and wine (depending on the time of day), life is looking up. The weather is even improving – we had our first sunny Sunday braai yesterday, on our stoep with the sea view, using real charcoal (no gas for the boere, fanks), and – naturally – loads of lamb tjops.
Not at all baaaaaaaad.
Ek het 'n huisie by die see
I can't believe that it's been a month since my last post. Seems finally finding a house and taking time to settle in is a rather time-consuming business. But here we are, at last, in a comfy wood cabin in Maraetai, just outside Auckland, that some people think is expensive (half our income!) and others think is a bargain (only half our income!) and we think is just perfect.I think what made finding a house so difficult - apart from the usual - is that I have always felt (possibly quite unfairly) that a house in some way is a statement about its occupants. A house seems to symbolise its inhabitants and their lives - much as it is supposed to do in dream analysis - and possibly even to define them. Like clothes that clad our bodies, a home clads our souls, and our most intimate family and private life. Even more: the home is the womb of the family. So it was with joy that we found a house that had been built with love, lived in with care, and had been designed for comfort and joy.
It does have its little drawbacks, however. The shower, for instance. I like to call it my Helen Clark shower. Helen Clark is the prime minister of NZ and the leader of the Labour party, currently fighting to hold onto power for yet another term in the upcoming November elections. Personally I think she's done a pretty good job so far, being primarily responsible for lowering unemployment to a very respectable 3.9% (one of the lowest in the world) among other things; but she has also been accused of turning the New Zealand into a 'nanny state', where the average citizen is micromanaged to improve productivity, ecosensitivity, and prudent living. And so we return to my shower - which is an electronic one, with the timer preset to a maximum of eight minutes. After this time, the shower switches resolutely off, not to be persuaded to come on again until a full five minutes has passed. It graciously deigns to give me a warning at seven minutes by briefly interrupting the water flow, so that I have enough time to hurriedly rinse the conditioner out of my hair and resolve to leave the shaving for tomorrow. Helen's government has suggested that all new houses be fitted with regulation shower heads that allow a maximum flow of eight litres a minute. Needless to say, there was an enormous, shocked outcry from the Kiwis who love their little luxuries. I say, coming from South Africa and dealing daily with my Helen Clark shower: bring 'em on, baby! I can take it! We Seouf Efricans are made of tuff stuff!
Looking west from our patio
So, we like our house.And who wouldn't? It has stunning views of the woods and the sea and the islands of Waiheke and Rangitoto in the distance; it is within walking distance of all important amenities (school, beaches, playpark, corner store - called a 'dairy' in NZ, coffee shop, mobile library, forests, etc); it is made of solid timber, so is warm and dry and very cosy; it is in a quiet, affluent cul-de-sac (no racing, noisy traffic); and of course, it has the Jungle Across the Road.
The Jungle Across the Road was discovered quite by accident, when Willem correctly read the signs at home and with forced gaiety suggested that it was time for him to take the children OUT for a walk. They went to explore the open plot across the road, and descended into a deep dip at its base. This led them down a steep incline into a wooded ravine, spangled with snowdrops, buttercups and daisies sprawling unabashedly beneath indigenous trees bearded with moss and hanging vines and populated with all manner of birds with whose cacaphony we were already quite familiar. The spongy grass finally levelled to reveal a clearing with a lovely little duckpond, complete with ducks and lilypads. (Memo to me: teach Max to swim. Fast.) Turns out this lovely spot belongs to all the residents of Omana Heights Drive, some of whom have used the more overgrown bits as a garden refuse dump (grrr), but most of whom leave it to grow and bloom undisturbed. Maya raced home, breathless, sparkly-eyed, with rose-tinged cheeks, bursting into the kitchen with: "Mommy, Mommy! We have a JUNGLE just across the road!" And so it was that the Jungle Across the Road was christened. It did explain where all the ducks in the road came from. And the dawn-and-dusk cacaphony. And the extravagant swathe of green prefacing our view of the sea.
The Jungle Across The Road
Willem and I were calculating how much money we'd need to buy this house, only if we felt like it, of course. Admittedly, it is in a rather pricey area - Maraetai is a tiny village about 20kms outside of Auckland proper, and is a favourite weekend and holiday getaway destination, being surrounded with beaches and forests as it is. Property is also notoriously expensive in New Zealand, and Auckland especially. And we do only have one salary at the moment. Our calculations showed that we'd have to save half our income (namely, the 50% that's left over once we've paid the rent) for the next seven years just to be able to afford the 20% down payment preferred by the banks when granting a mortgage. Einabliksem!
So for now, we'll just enjoy it, and curb our ambitions to adjusting in this crazy new country of unpredictable weather, illogical supermarket layouts, and nature reserves populated almost entirely by sheep. And develop some seriously mean glutes walking up and down the hills.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Princes, paupers, and poor immigrants: househunting from Pakuranga to Papatoetoe
We’d been in Auckland for two days, and were feeling as if we’d been hit by a plane, not just travelled on one. But we only have two weeks’ paid-for accommodation in our little motel, so we decided to sally forth and hunt a house. We felt emboldened by Streicher’s generous early-Christmas present of a very cool new Tomtom GPS, and with our handy “Where to live in Auckland” guide (thanks, Amazon!), nothing could be simpler, right? Er. Not quite.
The problem, see, is that Penny has forgotten that she is now a new, unemployed immigrant and not a swanky, top-earning professional. She was also quite naïve about the fact that it is pretty much only in South Africa where you can get a substantial house for a smallish rental. She further reasoned that a small, pretty house costs the same as an small, ugly house, but failed to appreciate that those other people who also think so and don’t have jetlag, two small children and no babysitter will get there first. It’s worse than the race for Oregon. The paper comes out, the Internet listing is posted and bang! They’re off! If there was any dust left in Auckland after the rain, you’d be choking on it. And by the time Willem and Penny got there, that pretty weatherboard house with the blue trim and broekie lace round the porch was rented yesterday. And the spacious, sunny one with the deck? Sorry, rented yesterday. What about that tiny but well-situated cottage with the flowering creeper all around the door? That one went just this morning. But we have a lovely place that was converted from the pokey garage of that big house that overlooks the bay – for three times what you can afford, naturally. Four bedrooms? Don’t make me laugh. Two bathrooms? You can flush your dollars down that extra toilet, luvey. A garage? Wotcha want a garage for, you can’t afford a car. A garden? No, but there are lots of lovely parks all over Auckland, sweetheart. And then of course you want a house in a good school zone – and the schools are rather fierce about their zoning, to the very last house. So you can choose – a spacious house into which (most of) your furniture can fit, and a school where most of the children have only recently learned English; or a tiny hovel within walking distance of one of the better Auckland schools, and your furniture can stand outside in the rain ’cos it’s OSP (On Street Parking – NZ realty lingo).
So Willem had to placate Penny with lots of soothing words and glasses of wine. He eventually dropped her and the kids this morning (Sunday) at the Auckland Museum. Here they enjoyed a Maori dance performance (Max trembled but took notes during the haka display) and ambled at their leisure through the delightful displays of New Zealand cultural and natural history, while Willem, unencumbered by a fussy, snobbish, vociferous wife and two travel-weary and bored children, sped off with the Tomtom and found a house. He hopes. He has yet to show it to Penny. He has, however, taken great pains to prepare her for the shock that it is not a cute, whitewashed-weatherboard cottage, although it does have a small garden, garage, and a big basement (for the furniture), and is in walking distance of all things important (good area, good school, beach, parks, quaint shopping, lots of coffee shops). She was mollified by the prospect of the coffee shops (the slut), but is reserving judgement till she sees it on Monday morning (estate agents in NZ don’t seem to work much on weekends or after hours – and house show times last just half-an-hour!).
Today, the house. Tomorrow, the car. On Sundays there’s a car fair in a suburb called Ellerslie, which is easy to find when you have a Tomtom (yay, Streicher!). Hopefully buying a cheap second-hand Japanese car will be easier, since Penny doesn’t feel quite as strongly about fancy cars. As long as it has more than two doors. And power steering, of course. And let’s not forget the central locking. Oh yes, and aircon. And airbags would be nice, since you’re asking. And if it’s any colour but white that would be most excellent, indeed.
The problem, see, is that Penny has forgotten that she is now a new, unemployed immigrant and not a swanky, top-earning professional. She was also quite naïve about the fact that it is pretty much only in South Africa where you can get a substantial house for a smallish rental. She further reasoned that a small, pretty house costs the same as an small, ugly house, but failed to appreciate that those other people who also think so and don’t have jetlag, two small children and no babysitter will get there first. It’s worse than the race for Oregon. The paper comes out, the Internet listing is posted and bang! They’re off! If there was any dust left in Auckland after the rain, you’d be choking on it. And by the time Willem and Penny got there, that pretty weatherboard house with the blue trim and broekie lace round the porch was rented yesterday. And the spacious, sunny one with the deck? Sorry, rented yesterday. What about that tiny but well-situated cottage with the flowering creeper all around the door? That one went just this morning. But we have a lovely place that was converted from the pokey garage of that big house that overlooks the bay – for three times what you can afford, naturally. Four bedrooms? Don’t make me laugh. Two bathrooms? You can flush your dollars down that extra toilet, luvey. A garage? Wotcha want a garage for, you can’t afford a car. A garden? No, but there are lots of lovely parks all over Auckland, sweetheart. And then of course you want a house in a good school zone – and the schools are rather fierce about their zoning, to the very last house. So you can choose – a spacious house into which (most of) your furniture can fit, and a school where most of the children have only recently learned English; or a tiny hovel within walking distance of one of the better Auckland schools, and your furniture can stand outside in the rain ’cos it’s OSP (On Street Parking – NZ realty lingo).
So Willem had to placate Penny with lots of soothing words and glasses of wine. He eventually dropped her and the kids this morning (Sunday) at the Auckland Museum. Here they enjoyed a Maori dance performance (Max trembled but took notes during the haka display) and ambled at their leisure through the delightful displays of New Zealand cultural and natural history, while Willem, unencumbered by a fussy, snobbish, vociferous wife and two travel-weary and bored children, sped off with the Tomtom and found a house. He hopes. He has yet to show it to Penny. He has, however, taken great pains to prepare her for the shock that it is not a cute, whitewashed-weatherboard cottage, although it does have a small garden, garage, and a big basement (for the furniture), and is in walking distance of all things important (good area, good school, beach, parks, quaint shopping, lots of coffee shops). She was mollified by the prospect of the coffee shops (the slut), but is reserving judgement till she sees it on Monday morning (estate agents in NZ don’t seem to work much on weekends or after hours – and house show times last just half-an-hour!).
Today, the house. Tomorrow, the car. On Sundays there’s a car fair in a suburb called Ellerslie, which is easy to find when you have a Tomtom (yay, Streicher!). Hopefully buying a cheap second-hand Japanese car will be easier, since Penny doesn’t feel quite as strongly about fancy cars. As long as it has more than two doors. And power steering, of course. And let’s not forget the central locking. Oh yes, and aircon. And airbags would be nice, since you’re asking. And if it’s any colour but white that would be most excellent, indeed.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Jet Hag
The friendly Kiwi night guy at the little motel in Manukau (the Quality Inn) was waiting to give us the keys to our tiny but adequate one-bedroomed apartment and rental car, and help carry the luggage to our first-floor room. We finally got to bed at around 3am local time, after which Maya woke us up several times complaining that she wasn’t sleepy. After I banished her with dire threats, which I will not repeat here for fear of the fearsome Kiwi social services, we fell into a blissful sleep – only to be woken up two hours (two hours!!!) later by my bouncing children, who had decided that their afternoon nap was now over and that they were HUNGRY. After all, as Maya reminded me, the change in time zones meant that we had gone straight from breakfast on one plane to supper on the next a mere five hours later, so – horrors – we had missed lunch! I tried hard to ignore them, but Willem finally forced me to get out of bed by bringing me horrible instant coffee. Muttering darkly, I descended with as much dignity as is possible under the circumstances to the breakfast room. (Q: What do you call a woman with jet lag? A: A jet hag.) Luckily the Kiwis seem rather serious about their coffee, and I revived myself sufficiently with a nice and hot ‘flat white’ (Kiwi-speak for coffee with milk) to plan our first day with Willem.
And all in all, it was a good day. We discovered the most beautiful park right next to the motel, where I took Max running after breakfast. In addition to a vast expanse of Ireland-green lawn fringed by quaint houses with sidewalks, the park has a wide range of ubercool convoluted jungle gyms, slides and swings, and even a scooped-out skateboard ring (Max didn’t need a skateboard to ride it). And get this: it all works! Nothing is broken! And the jungle gyms are bedded in soft bark chips. It created a very good first impression of the city. Later, we went shopping. We had inadvertently sent our Auckland street map with the shipping container, but have spent so much time poring over it that we could navigate our way around very nicely. The children – evil spawn – fell asleep in the car as soon as we drove off, but that didn’t stop us stocking up on groceries (the most essential of which were the rooibos tea and a coffee plunger), getting SIM cards for our phones, meeting Lize for coffee, cruising Howick, and applying for broadband wireless Internet.
Based on my initial recon, New Zealanders do indeed love their coffee. (Another reason to stay here, yay!) Everywhere there are cute or trendy or just fast coffee shops claiming that theirs is the best in town, and, for the more plebian connoisseurs (ahem), Starbucks and Wild Bean Cafes litter the joint. (One coffee place is called ‘QuickFix’, mwahahaha). Then it was back to the park for the children (who are reacting to the change and the jet lag with slightly hysterical hyperactivity alternating with periods of dead sleep), while I turned our flat into a place we can live in for the next few weeks and concocted a rather good supper in its tiny, underequipped kitchen. Max passed out at the dinner table at 6pm, with his spaghetti fork poised halfway to his mouth, while Maya (who refused to wake up from her morning sleep and was in a foul mood when she did) is still going strong and shows no signs of adapting her circadian rhythm to anything but SA time.
Our contact numbers are: Penny +64 211 419 276 and Willem +64 211 387 602. We’re still waiting for the broadband, and when it comes I’ll download some pics. Till then, I’m gonna try get some shut-eye before I’m summoned to prepare lunch at 2am or something equally appalling. Good mor- Good night!
And all in all, it was a good day. We discovered the most beautiful park right next to the motel, where I took Max running after breakfast. In addition to a vast expanse of Ireland-green lawn fringed by quaint houses with sidewalks, the park has a wide range of ubercool convoluted jungle gyms, slides and swings, and even a scooped-out skateboard ring (Max didn’t need a skateboard to ride it). And get this: it all works! Nothing is broken! And the jungle gyms are bedded in soft bark chips. It created a very good first impression of the city. Later, we went shopping. We had inadvertently sent our Auckland street map with the shipping container, but have spent so much time poring over it that we could navigate our way around very nicely. The children – evil spawn – fell asleep in the car as soon as we drove off, but that didn’t stop us stocking up on groceries (the most essential of which were the rooibos tea and a coffee plunger), getting SIM cards for our phones, meeting Lize for coffee, cruising Howick, and applying for broadband wireless Internet.
Based on my initial recon, New Zealanders do indeed love their coffee. (Another reason to stay here, yay!) Everywhere there are cute or trendy or just fast coffee shops claiming that theirs is the best in town, and, for the more plebian connoisseurs (ahem), Starbucks and Wild Bean Cafes litter the joint. (One coffee place is called ‘QuickFix’, mwahahaha). Then it was back to the park for the children (who are reacting to the change and the jet lag with slightly hysterical hyperactivity alternating with periods of dead sleep), while I turned our flat into a place we can live in for the next few weeks and concocted a rather good supper in its tiny, underequipped kitchen. Max passed out at the dinner table at 6pm, with his spaghetti fork poised halfway to his mouth, while Maya (who refused to wake up from her morning sleep and was in a foul mood when she did) is still going strong and shows no signs of adapting her circadian rhythm to anything but SA time.
Our contact numbers are: Penny +64 211 419 276 and Willem +64 211 387 602. We’re still waiting for the broadband, and when it comes I’ll download some pics. Till then, I’m gonna try get some shut-eye before I’m summoned to prepare lunch at 2am or something equally appalling. Good mor- Good night!
Stiff upper lip, wobbly lower lip
We made it! We crossed over about a million kilometres of ocean (NZ is inderdaad moer-vêr), and have finally landed on Kiwi soil. It has not been without its perils, of course, starting with the obstreperous officials at the airport refusing to let us take Maya's bike on the plane without lots more bubble wrap than it had (it had to be donated to a deserving porter, poor Maya). Then there was the delay caused by crashing computers at OR Tambo, which meant waiting in a very long queue at check-in and a three-hour departure delay. Add two weary and overexcited children to the mix (who did not get their lunch until 6pm nor their supper until nearly 11pm), and it starts getting, shall we say, interesting. There was some fun in the queue though; notably seasoned ex-pats back for a visit teasing us about our amount of luggage, comparing notes and dispensing advice, Maya suggesting we play hide-and-seek at International Departures to pass the time (gaaa!!!), and Max doing his two-year old thing and darting off, cackling hysterically, into the ominous, child-snatching crowd (luckily his mother was a sprinter at school, and no stranger to making a spectacle of herself in public). Perhaps it was just as well – whenever there seemed to be time to reflect on the enormity of what we were busy doing, and I could not prevent my inner gaze turning to the people I was leaving so very far behind, and when the PWOL (Present Without Leave) tears would spring out, something would happen to distract me. (Tea! Where’s my TEA? Max’s plaintive wail reverberates piercingly through the packed, dimmed cabin. Rooibos? Sorry, we don’t have anything like that on Qantas, replies the helpful steward.)
The delay meant we missed our transfer from Sydney to Auckland and we had to wait for a later flight, so our booked transport to the motel departed early and our fragile baggage (guitar and car seats) arrived late (in fact, a day later, I’m still waiting for it). Finally, exactly 24 hours after entering the Joburg airport, the hyperactive offspring and their haggard parents limped through the gates of Auckland International after midnight local time, wondering how we would get to our motel - only to be met by the smiling, friendly, only familiar faces in all of Auckland of Lize and Cindy, who had waited three hours to surprise us, and had no way of knowing when (or if) we would arrive. What could a girl do but burst into tears (again)? They had brought gifts for the kids and coffee for the grown-ups, and we caught up on a bench, waiting for another taxi.
And so, with a smorgasbord of emotions to feed on, we were welcomed into New Zealand and trundled off to our motel on the next leg of our grand adventure.
The delay meant we missed our transfer from Sydney to Auckland and we had to wait for a later flight, so our booked transport to the motel departed early and our fragile baggage (guitar and car seats) arrived late (in fact, a day later, I’m still waiting for it). Finally, exactly 24 hours after entering the Joburg airport, the hyperactive offspring and their haggard parents limped through the gates of Auckland International after midnight local time, wondering how we would get to our motel - only to be met by the smiling, friendly, only familiar faces in all of Auckland of Lize and Cindy, who had waited three hours to surprise us, and had no way of knowing when (or if) we would arrive. What could a girl do but burst into tears (again)? They had brought gifts for the kids and coffee for the grown-ups, and we caught up on a bench, waiting for another taxi.
And so, with a smorgasbord of emotions to feed on, we were welcomed into New Zealand and trundled off to our motel on the next leg of our grand adventure.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
The ecology of friendship
Apart from realising that I must be totally nuts to be doing this (a grand insight, worth at least six months of therapy), I am learning a few other things too. For one, I am learning that taking leave is not a word. It is a process. A long and complex one.
Firstly, I didn't realise that I would have to start saying my farewells so long before I actually left. And I wasn't ready for it when, a few months ago, my out-of-town school friends came to stay and when the time came for them to leave, standing in the middle of the driveway, it hit me that this would be the last visit for a long time, and that, months before our departure, I had to start saying goodbye.
Of course, it is not the kind of goodbye that one says on someone's deathbed; it is not a morbid fullstop; but it is poignant and sad and important to acknowledge that our friendship is changing, that it will now be nurtured through diligent correspondence rather than to-the-death 30 Seconds battles over late-night cheese and wine or impromptu Friday night braais ('Hi! What's in your fridge? I've got some wors and chicken, you got charcoal? We'll be right over').
We arranged to have farewell parties for the family and for our friends, and while organising social gatherings in the midst of the chaos of packing and sorting was a little hectic, I looked forward to hosting our favourite people for the last time - after all, our house lends itself to great parties! Now I've read Kubler-Ross and her cronies, and I know about stages of loss, but oddly enough I've read nothing of the literature on emigration, so my experience of the stages of this kind of taking leave is uninformed, except on a purely phenomenological level. The first thing I noticed was how little I realised how much our leaving affected the lives of our friends, and how it rippled out to touch people far and wide. Many of our friends dreaded the farewell party, some even cancelled at the last minute. I looked forward to the farewell party as a final fling in our house; they saw it as something more akin to a wake. I thought that life for them would go on; after all, my life was changing radically, theirs wasn't. I haven't experienced my role in their lives as being so pivotal as to cause trauma by removing my presence, yet they tell me that my going is devastating for them. I was puzzled by this: am I so important to them? Or is it what my leaving evokes in/for them - the questions they ask themselves, the inevitable self-examination, the resultant discomfort, unease? The answer is perhaps a great deal more complex. When someone touches your life and then leaves, it is not like taking a pebble out of a pond. When I leave, the gap that remains is never quite filled, because I bring something very particular to each relationship. Friends are replaceable; the kind of friendship they offer is not. The ecology of friendship is delicately balanced. And then of course, there is the fact that while I am the one whose life is changing, at least I have something to look forward to, to gain, in this process - adventure, a new life! - while my friends and family look forward only to loss and the emptiness of being left behind.
The ripple effect of our leaving was driven home to me in an unexpected and particularly painful way when school began last week, and Meghan-Faye's mother told me her little girl cried in the car all the way there because she knew that this term, her best friend Maya would not be there. All the other kids had already formed their cliques and found their own 'best friends', who would be her best friend now? Who would she play with? And gossip with in class? (At least they will no longer get sent to the headmistress - again - for nattering in class - in the first term of Grade 1 nogal. What a pair!)
So now I encourage Maya to practise her writing and computer skills by emailing Meghan-Faye and the other maatjies left behind. Where once was a joined-at-the-hip best friend and a giggling partner-in-crime, there is now that most diluted of relationships, a pen-pal. And while there is Skype and GoogleTalk, handwritten snailmail and postcards, blogs and email, and while there are the promises to visit and stay in contact and the certainty that time and distance will not erase the friendship, my leaving the fireside circle changes both the dance and the dancers. The dance will probably be neither better nor worse for my going, but the ecology has been upset. And when the balance is restored, the landscape will look different.
And while before I felt that I was the one traumatised by my loss (my friends were only losing one person, I was losing many), and that I was the one needing support, now I understand and stand in some awe, and with tremendous humility, before the shifting landscape of our lives, where such tiny tremors in the tectonic plates of our lives ripple and tear over the savannah and change its topography forever.
Penny
Firstly, I didn't realise that I would have to start saying my farewells so long before I actually left. And I wasn't ready for it when, a few months ago, my out-of-town school friends came to stay and when the time came for them to leave, standing in the middle of the driveway, it hit me that this would be the last visit for a long time, and that, months before our departure, I had to start saying goodbye.
Of course, it is not the kind of goodbye that one says on someone's deathbed; it is not a morbid fullstop; but it is poignant and sad and important to acknowledge that our friendship is changing, that it will now be nurtured through diligent correspondence rather than to-the-death 30 Seconds battles over late-night cheese and wine or impromptu Friday night braais ('Hi! What's in your fridge? I've got some wors and chicken, you got charcoal? We'll be right over').
We arranged to have farewell parties for the family and for our friends, and while organising social gatherings in the midst of the chaos of packing and sorting was a little hectic, I looked forward to hosting our favourite people for the last time - after all, our house lends itself to great parties! Now I've read Kubler-Ross and her cronies, and I know about stages of loss, but oddly enough I've read nothing of the literature on emigration, so my experience of the stages of this kind of taking leave is uninformed, except on a purely phenomenological level. The first thing I noticed was how little I realised how much our leaving affected the lives of our friends, and how it rippled out to touch people far and wide. Many of our friends dreaded the farewell party, some even cancelled at the last minute. I looked forward to the farewell party as a final fling in our house; they saw it as something more akin to a wake. I thought that life for them would go on; after all, my life was changing radically, theirs wasn't. I haven't experienced my role in their lives as being so pivotal as to cause trauma by removing my presence, yet they tell me that my going is devastating for them. I was puzzled by this: am I so important to them? Or is it what my leaving evokes in/for them - the questions they ask themselves, the inevitable self-examination, the resultant discomfort, unease? The answer is perhaps a great deal more complex. When someone touches your life and then leaves, it is not like taking a pebble out of a pond. When I leave, the gap that remains is never quite filled, because I bring something very particular to each relationship. Friends are replaceable; the kind of friendship they offer is not. The ecology of friendship is delicately balanced. And then of course, there is the fact that while I am the one whose life is changing, at least I have something to look forward to, to gain, in this process - adventure, a new life! - while my friends and family look forward only to loss and the emptiness of being left behind.
The ripple effect of our leaving was driven home to me in an unexpected and particularly painful way when school began last week, and Meghan-Faye's mother told me her little girl cried in the car all the way there because she knew that this term, her best friend Maya would not be there. All the other kids had already formed their cliques and found their own 'best friends', who would be her best friend now? Who would she play with? And gossip with in class? (At least they will no longer get sent to the headmistress - again - for nattering in class - in the first term of Grade 1 nogal. What a pair!)
So now I encourage Maya to practise her writing and computer skills by emailing Meghan-Faye and the other maatjies left behind. Where once was a joined-at-the-hip best friend and a giggling partner-in-crime, there is now that most diluted of relationships, a pen-pal. And while there is Skype and GoogleTalk, handwritten snailmail and postcards, blogs and email, and while there are the promises to visit and stay in contact and the certainty that time and distance will not erase the friendship, my leaving the fireside circle changes both the dance and the dancers. The dance will probably be neither better nor worse for my going, but the ecology has been upset. And when the balance is restored, the landscape will look different.
And while before I felt that I was the one traumatised by my loss (my friends were only losing one person, I was losing many), and that I was the one needing support, now I understand and stand in some awe, and with tremendous humility, before the shifting landscape of our lives, where such tiny tremors in the tectonic plates of our lives ripple and tear over the savannah and change its topography forever.
Penny
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
More Kegels please, we're Kiwis
In a previous post, I said that emigration was a little like seduction. Well, having gone a little way down that road, I reckon I was spot on - it is the kind of seduction where someone ends up getting knocked up.
In the beginning, there is the excited anticipation of the Happy Event - poring over books, guides and how-to's, planning the steps and stages, learning everything there is to know about the new arrival and the brave new adventure on which we are embarking. There is some mourning too - all those girls' nights out and creature comforts will have to be sacrificed, at least for a while. Many parts of the 'old you' disappear; your focus changes, and people around you notice and quietly begin to stand back. There is the shopping and planning and preparation and pre-event parties. Everyone knows someone who has done it, and everyone has their share of advice to give. We listen sagely, privately resolving to do things our way and not be fazed by what lies ahead. And then the Grand Moment approaches. Everything is in place: we've read all the books, consulted all the professionals, got the 3-D photos and chartered, as far as possible, the unchartered territory.
And then the labour begins.
At first it doesn't seem so bad: it's tough, it hurts, but you were prepared for this, the books warned you. Sure, you have to give away your stuff and chuck those sentimental high school love letters; yes, you must turn mercenary and sell things to your friends when you'd rather give them away because now is the time to exercise some financial savvy; the paperwork is annoying and laborious but eventually you get it done and maybe even get a smile from the official at Home Affairs; you say goodbye to your house and your beloved cats; and after years of living there, your neighbours finally come over to say hello just as you leave... but it's okay. Just breathe through it all and you're doing fine.
Then the contractions intensify. You can't find a home for your cat. You finally throw the kinds of parties in that spacious, underused lapa that was the reason for buying that overpriced property in the first place; and while you down that magnificent Fairview pinotage your close friend brought, you comprehend the wasted quality time with her that has gone before, and the lack of time that lies ahead. (Kicking back a third glass of your favourite fermented fruit over Skype just isn't the same.) You realise you probably won't ever see your grandmother again - and then your mother falls ill and you are seized by a particularly painful contraction: you may never see her again either. Eish!
For those of you who have been through natural labour, you might recall that stage when you grabbed the nurse by the collar and snarled, "I've changed my mind! Get me a f*** epidural!" - or, if you are like me, "I've changed my mind! I don't want a baby any more!" You might even recall what she said (although, if you were in labour, it's not bloody likely). If she was experienced and patient, she probably would have told you that "the only way out is through". Which is true. But not particularly comforting. So when the packers arrive on Monday morning to a house that, despite a weekend of sleepless toil, had not yet been completely cleared of all illegal and offensive items (e.g. woven reed baskets, mud on the soles of our shoes, decorative Christmas pinecones, old bank statements, dry kokis, too-small baby clothes, Pretoria telephone directories, aerosols, evil flammable Tippex and glue sticks, etc), there is nothing to do but push on. And when the labour becomes protracted on Tuesday, with the packers asking for tea when the kettle and mugs have already been packed, and a nest of old files discovered at the same time your passport goes missing, you take deep, focused breaths. And then when the container finally arrives for loading on Wednesday, and you stare helplessly at it and wonder how on earth it will all FIT, you spit out a lot of very bad words, and remember that this is hard work and it's really too late to go back and you push. And then you curse some more, and remember that there will be something wonderful at the end of it, and you breathe. And when the packers can't fit all your stuff into the container despite the consultant's unctuous reassurances, you spit and fume some more and recall that you are making a new life for the rest of your life, and you push. You swear a lot, but you push.
I've birthed two children, so I know that labour does end eventually. And that the wounds heal. And that there are post-partum consequences which are also difficult, but not insurmountable. At the moment, swigging champagne (okay, sparkling wine) at the end of Moving Day, with most of my stuff crammed in a metal crate headed for Durban harbour and the rest in a Joburg warehouse waiting for space in a part-consignment, the pause between contractions is a relief. And yes, even a little exciting. After all, a new life is something to celebrate - even with contractions.
Penny
In the beginning, there is the excited anticipation of the Happy Event - poring over books, guides and how-to's, planning the steps and stages, learning everything there is to know about the new arrival and the brave new adventure on which we are embarking. There is some mourning too - all those girls' nights out and creature comforts will have to be sacrificed, at least for a while. Many parts of the 'old you' disappear; your focus changes, and people around you notice and quietly begin to stand back. There is the shopping and planning and preparation and pre-event parties. Everyone knows someone who has done it, and everyone has their share of advice to give. We listen sagely, privately resolving to do things our way and not be fazed by what lies ahead. And then the Grand Moment approaches. Everything is in place: we've read all the books, consulted all the professionals, got the 3-D photos and chartered, as far as possible, the unchartered territory.
And then the labour begins.
At first it doesn't seem so bad: it's tough, it hurts, but you were prepared for this, the books warned you. Sure, you have to give away your stuff and chuck those sentimental high school love letters; yes, you must turn mercenary and sell things to your friends when you'd rather give them away because now is the time to exercise some financial savvy; the paperwork is annoying and laborious but eventually you get it done and maybe even get a smile from the official at Home Affairs; you say goodbye to your house and your beloved cats; and after years of living there, your neighbours finally come over to say hello just as you leave... but it's okay. Just breathe through it all and you're doing fine.
Then the contractions intensify. You can't find a home for your cat. You finally throw the kinds of parties in that spacious, underused lapa that was the reason for buying that overpriced property in the first place; and while you down that magnificent Fairview pinotage your close friend brought, you comprehend the wasted quality time with her that has gone before, and the lack of time that lies ahead. (Kicking back a third glass of your favourite fermented fruit over Skype just isn't the same.) You realise you probably won't ever see your grandmother again - and then your mother falls ill and you are seized by a particularly painful contraction: you may never see her again either. Eish!
For those of you who have been through natural labour, you might recall that stage when you grabbed the nurse by the collar and snarled, "I've changed my mind! Get me a f*** epidural!" - or, if you are like me, "I've changed my mind! I don't want a baby any more!" You might even recall what she said (although, if you were in labour, it's not bloody likely). If she was experienced and patient, she probably would have told you that "the only way out is through". Which is true. But not particularly comforting. So when the packers arrive on Monday morning to a house that, despite a weekend of sleepless toil, had not yet been completely cleared of all illegal and offensive items (e.g. woven reed baskets, mud on the soles of our shoes, decorative Christmas pinecones, old bank statements, dry kokis, too-small baby clothes, Pretoria telephone directories, aerosols, evil flammable Tippex and glue sticks, etc), there is nothing to do but push on. And when the labour becomes protracted on Tuesday, with the packers asking for tea when the kettle and mugs have already been packed, and a nest of old files discovered at the same time your passport goes missing, you take deep, focused breaths. And then when the container finally arrives for loading on Wednesday, and you stare helplessly at it and wonder how on earth it will all FIT, you spit out a lot of very bad words, and remember that this is hard work and it's really too late to go back and you push. And then you curse some more, and remember that there will be something wonderful at the end of it, and you breathe. And when the packers can't fit all your stuff into the container despite the consultant's unctuous reassurances, you spit and fume some more and recall that you are making a new life for the rest of your life, and you push. You swear a lot, but you push.
I've birthed two children, so I know that labour does end eventually. And that the wounds heal. And that there are post-partum consequences which are also difficult, but not insurmountable. At the moment, swigging champagne (okay, sparkling wine) at the end of Moving Day, with most of my stuff crammed in a metal crate headed for Durban harbour and the rest in a Joburg warehouse waiting for space in a part-consignment, the pause between contractions is a relief. And yes, even a little exciting. After all, a new life is something to celebrate - even with contractions.
Penny
A-million-decisions-a-day
Today was loading day. Sparkling wine ready in fridge for sundowner time when we kick back and say, "Phew! All done, possessions safely on their way to NZ". I wish! I have had the most gruelling week that I possibly have ever experienced. Frantic packing and sorting and THROWING AWAY so many papers and slips and mementos I haven't thrown away in the last three moves. Finding homes for our cat (and three other cats that appeared on our property and stayed, in the last month!). The best way I can describe this last month and especially the last two weeks is: a million-decisions-a-day.
When you prepare the contents of your abode for shipping and you have been "making a home" for the last 10 years, you accumulate stuff: some valuable, some useful, some precious, some meaningful, some sentimental and some of it just stuff you might need in future. DECIDING what you will need, and what not, what you will want and what not, WITHOUT knowing where you will be staying, what it will look like, etc, makes taking a single decision a tough task. Now, imagine that you touch everything you currently have in your house and ask yourself, "Will I need/want this in my house/life of unknown dimensions?" Then, add two fragile, unsettled children below the age of 7 to the mix, who want your CONSTANT reassurance that you still love them and won't forget to pack them.
Back to loading day. The day the packers load all your stuff you have decided to take with to its new destination (which, by the way, does not exist yet). In order for the packers to load all our stuff, they need to bubble wrap EVERYTHING.
This is very cool on Day One, which was Monday the 18th of August 2008. They arrived, ready with kilometres of bubble wrap, clear duct tape, a mountain of boxes and a friendly disposition. You quickly notice that they have done this before. You are most impressed to see them flip over a dining room table on a huge piece of bubble wrap, filling up the cavity with clothes, curtains, carpets and close it up with more bubble wrap. The result: a heavy, squarish blob of bubble wrap. Soon the contents of your whole house are transformed into heavy blobs of bubble wrap with cryptic descriptions like: "Mr WP Louw's step leader (sic)" or "Bed, toys and clothing".
Sometime during the day a man from the shipping company arrives to "finalise insurance and payment of the shipping". You listen to the options, and one option very clearly stands out: insure only for total loss, at 3.5% of what you reckon the total value of your contents amounts to. You sign, you smile, laugh at his jokes, and just before he leaves you ask the one question that has been bugging you the last two weeks: "Do you think our stuff will fit in the container?" The answer you get is a reassuring non-answer, something to the effect of: "I'm sure it will all work out, the packers, loaders and person who determined the volume of your content are all very experienced."
At 3pm they leave your property with more than half the contents of your house still unwrapped and a nagging thought starts to make its appearance in the back of your mind: "What if they don't finish wrapping before loading day?" - but you quickly dismiss that one with, "It's their problem, not mine - Ha!"
Tuesday the 19th of August. The packers arrive late. They seem unconcerned. This is strangely not reassuring. They pack, they wrap, they leave. By the end of Day Two, there is still a significant amount of content to wrap - and tomorrow the container arrives. Still, you reckon, "Their problem, not mine."
Loading Day. Container arrives early. It looks terrifically cool, it is finally happening! It also looks horribly small, it won't all fit!!!! "But no", you tell yourself, "leave it to the professionals, this is no time to panic". The packers arrive late again. They start wrapping the rest of the contents and after about an hour the supervisor strolls over and asks if they really should wrap the rest, because their dedicated "loader" is convinced that everything won't fit. So if we could just indicate what we want to take with and what to leave it would help. F.......................K!
You panic, you remain calm, you panic, you look for someone to blame, you phone the shipping company head office, you blast the poor secretary who sounded too blasé in answering the phone in the first place. She promises that the relevant person will phone you back. They don't. You panic some more. The supervisor asks you again, should they continue wrapping or leave it?
At this point you reach enlightenment and realise the value of non-attachment. You decide that you are not attached to your identity of being a nice person and just have to deal with this crisis that seems to be of monumental proportions.
So, half the container is loaded with amorphous blobs, contents diverse and unspecified. What is left to be loaded is all presumably valuable, useful, sentimental - after all, why otherwise would you have kept it? Something has to give. You have no time to decide, for as you are thinking about it, the packers are loading blobs into the container, slowly filling it up, possibly with stuff of lower priority than the stuff that won't fit in the end. You are on a rollercoaster and cannot get off. The only way out is through. Make a decision with insufficient information, and deal with the consequenses. Then do it again, and again, and again.
It is now half past 11 at night. I had my sparkling wine today at 10pm while writing this post. It was a lovely wine. What pleasure one can find in small mercies.
Willem
When you prepare the contents of your abode for shipping and you have been "making a home" for the last 10 years, you accumulate stuff: some valuable, some useful, some precious, some meaningful, some sentimental and some of it just stuff you might need in future. DECIDING what you will need, and what not, what you will want and what not, WITHOUT knowing where you will be staying, what it will look like, etc, makes taking a single decision a tough task. Now, imagine that you touch everything you currently have in your house and ask yourself, "Will I need/want this in my house/life of unknown dimensions?" Then, add two fragile, unsettled children below the age of 7 to the mix, who want your CONSTANT reassurance that you still love them and won't forget to pack them.
Back to loading day. The day the packers load all your stuff you have decided to take with to its new destination (which, by the way, does not exist yet). In order for the packers to load all our stuff, they need to bubble wrap EVERYTHING.
This is very cool on Day One, which was Monday the 18th of August 2008. They arrived, ready with kilometres of bubble wrap, clear duct tape, a mountain of boxes and a friendly disposition. You quickly notice that they have done this before. You are most impressed to see them flip over a dining room table on a huge piece of bubble wrap, filling up the cavity with clothes, curtains, carpets and close it up with more bubble wrap. The result: a heavy, squarish blob of bubble wrap. Soon the contents of your whole house are transformed into heavy blobs of bubble wrap with cryptic descriptions like: "Mr WP Louw's step leader (sic)" or "Bed, toys and clothing".
Sometime during the day a man from the shipping company arrives to "finalise insurance and payment of the shipping". You listen to the options, and one option very clearly stands out: insure only for total loss, at 3.5% of what you reckon the total value of your contents amounts to. You sign, you smile, laugh at his jokes, and just before he leaves you ask the one question that has been bugging you the last two weeks: "Do you think our stuff will fit in the container?" The answer you get is a reassuring non-answer, something to the effect of: "I'm sure it will all work out, the packers, loaders and person who determined the volume of your content are all very experienced."
At 3pm they leave your property with more than half the contents of your house still unwrapped and a nagging thought starts to make its appearance in the back of your mind: "What if they don't finish wrapping before loading day?" - but you quickly dismiss that one with, "It's their problem, not mine - Ha!"
Tuesday the 19th of August. The packers arrive late. They seem unconcerned. This is strangely not reassuring. They pack, they wrap, they leave. By the end of Day Two, there is still a significant amount of content to wrap - and tomorrow the container arrives. Still, you reckon, "Their problem, not mine."
Loading Day. Container arrives early. It looks terrifically cool, it is finally happening! It also looks horribly small, it won't all fit!!!! "But no", you tell yourself, "leave it to the professionals, this is no time to panic". The packers arrive late again. They start wrapping the rest of the contents and after about an hour the supervisor strolls over and asks if they really should wrap the rest, because their dedicated "loader" is convinced that everything won't fit. So if we could just indicate what we want to take with and what to leave it would help. F.......................K!
You panic, you remain calm, you panic, you look for someone to blame, you phone the shipping company head office, you blast the poor secretary who sounded too blasé in answering the phone in the first place. She promises that the relevant person will phone you back. They don't. You panic some more. The supervisor asks you again, should they continue wrapping or leave it?
At this point you reach enlightenment and realise the value of non-attachment. You decide that you are not attached to your identity of being a nice person and just have to deal with this crisis that seems to be of monumental proportions.
So, half the container is loaded with amorphous blobs, contents diverse and unspecified. What is left to be loaded is all presumably valuable, useful, sentimental - after all, why otherwise would you have kept it? Something has to give. You have no time to decide, for as you are thinking about it, the packers are loading blobs into the container, slowly filling it up, possibly with stuff of lower priority than the stuff that won't fit in the end. You are on a rollercoaster and cannot get off. The only way out is through. Make a decision with insufficient information, and deal with the consequenses. Then do it again, and again, and again.
It is now half past 11 at night. I had my sparkling wine today at 10pm while writing this post. It was a lovely wine. What pleasure one can find in small mercies.
Willem
Saturday, August 9, 2008
The end of the beginning... or the beginning of the end
So. It all began apparently very innocuously, with The Man complaining to his brother about the state of the country - a favourite topic with all South Africans, but especially for those with ex-pat brothers. And then said brother - sitting pretty in Denmark - says, equally innocuously, why don't you try New Zealand? It's beautiful, there are great mountain biking trails there, and it was the backdrop for the Lord of the Rings. And so it started.
The first time Willem mentioned moving abroad to me, I laughed indulgently and dismissed the idea immediately. But Willem is a sly dog. He knows all about subtlety and insinuation, about attrition and allusion, cunning and craftiness, guile and - on my part - gullibility. He'd casually throw attractive facts about NZ into the conversation; he'd leave gorgeously photographed tourist guides on the coffee table; he'd rent DVDs filmed in New Zealand and make sure I knew where that magnificent landscape could be found. He'd show me stats about how the weather was not THAT bad, about how the earthquakes weren't THAT hazardous, about the great outdoor life and sporting culture, about how NZ's global peace index rated 4th in the world. When I complained about the cost of private school fees, he'd happen to mention that New Zealand's (public, virtually free) education was rated 7th in the world; when I wearied of the provocations of working in private practice he'd just happen to find a spot in the conversation for the abundance of psychology posts in New Zealand, which did not require taking suicide calls on Sunday nights or dealing with medical aids that ran out after March of each year. He'd point out the myriad of half-day posts designed for working mothers, the family-friendly kiwi culture, the opportunities for further training and specialisation, the red carpet rolled out for psychologists in a country that appreciates the need for tertiary health care.
So what can a girl do? I was seduced by sweet talk (er, not for the first time...). Of course, like most of us, I am familiar with the disillusionment that follows seduction, but, like most of us, I am a sucker for the thrill of new discovery, despite strongly suspecting that I will regret it in the morning. Seduction and emigration are not that different. It is so easy to slide into it, so easy to just take that one more step... and then it's too late, and you're rollercoasting on a ride that you can't get off of, but you're not sure that you want to because you're simultaneously terrified and exhiliarated and paralysed and mobilised and confused and focused all at once. It was such a quiet acceleration from 'just' registering with the NZ Psychologists Board and 'just' filling in an online Expression of Interest Form to getting a job and buying airplane tickets. The South Africans have only one word for it: bliksem. (Actually, there is another, but this is a family blog.)
So today I find myself teetering on the edge of the world, about to tumble into a black hole that could timewarp me to another universe or wipe me out completely. Some of the simplest things to do have been the hardest: selling our raw wood-and-skin drums and untreated wicker furniture, parting with old books and favourite pot plants (some of which have accompanied me since student days), forcing our children to let go of at least some of their numerous toys, finding a home for our cats and - topping the charts - meeting my first and only newborn nephew Finn for the first and almost the last time in a long while. The first goodbyes took me by surprise: a month ago, friends from afar on an annual visit to town reminded me that this was the last time we'd meet. The scheduled goodbyes are proving no easier - we refused to make speeches at our Family Farewell lunch today, but that didn't stop the tears from threatening an impromptu appearance when it was time to collect the empty platters and head on home.
Yet on and on the rollercoaster hurtles. Tomorrow we start sorting the boxes of stuff that have accumulated in our spare room; next week I close my practice, part with my cats and host a Bilbo-esque bonfire farewell for friends and colleagues; in two weeks' time I'll be living out of a suitcase in preparation for the trip eastwards. Living in the moment mixes in a psychadelic swirl with visions of the future. Memories of childhood rituals, invoked by last-time lunches with my cousins and sessions of sorting and filing old photographs, eddy and whirl with diaphanous images of reunions in a foreign home (what an oxymoron!) and family photographs yet-to-be. Some of my friends tell me they could not do what I've done; others have already done it. My journey is that of an approximate 175 million migrants currently living in the world - hardly unique. Yet to myself and my children, and those closest to us, it is a journey taken for the first time: an adventure into the frontiers of time and space and humanity, where everything is unknown, despite the aids that technology and information and wisdom can provide.
And I suppose that is what makes our journey so attractive: in this world where everything has been done, and where every discovery becomes so quickly jaded; where we long for instant gratification, quick fixes and the American sitcom 'happily ever after', this is an adventure that doesn't end when we turn off the TV or drain the sauvignon blanc. It doesn't end once we land in the home we've only ever seen in the Lord of the Rings. It doesn't even begin there. It is ongoing, as it has always been: only now, we are acutely aware of it, like that first gasp of air after being underwater too long.
And what a breath it is. As Bilbo Baggins says, on that penultimate journey of his,
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Penny
The first time Willem mentioned moving abroad to me, I laughed indulgently and dismissed the idea immediately. But Willem is a sly dog. He knows all about subtlety and insinuation, about attrition and allusion, cunning and craftiness, guile and - on my part - gullibility. He'd casually throw attractive facts about NZ into the conversation; he'd leave gorgeously photographed tourist guides on the coffee table; he'd rent DVDs filmed in New Zealand and make sure I knew where that magnificent landscape could be found. He'd show me stats about how the weather was not THAT bad, about how the earthquakes weren't THAT hazardous, about the great outdoor life and sporting culture, about how NZ's global peace index rated 4th in the world. When I complained about the cost of private school fees, he'd happen to mention that New Zealand's (public, virtually free) education was rated 7th in the world; when I wearied of the provocations of working in private practice he'd just happen to find a spot in the conversation for the abundance of psychology posts in New Zealand, which did not require taking suicide calls on Sunday nights or dealing with medical aids that ran out after March of each year. He'd point out the myriad of half-day posts designed for working mothers, the family-friendly kiwi culture, the opportunities for further training and specialisation, the red carpet rolled out for psychologists in a country that appreciates the need for tertiary health care.
So what can a girl do? I was seduced by sweet talk (er, not for the first time...). Of course, like most of us, I am familiar with the disillusionment that follows seduction, but, like most of us, I am a sucker for the thrill of new discovery, despite strongly suspecting that I will regret it in the morning. Seduction and emigration are not that different. It is so easy to slide into it, so easy to just take that one more step... and then it's too late, and you're rollercoasting on a ride that you can't get off of, but you're not sure that you want to because you're simultaneously terrified and exhiliarated and paralysed and mobilised and confused and focused all at once. It was such a quiet acceleration from 'just' registering with the NZ Psychologists Board and 'just' filling in an online Expression of Interest Form to getting a job and buying airplane tickets. The South Africans have only one word for it: bliksem. (Actually, there is another, but this is a family blog.)
So today I find myself teetering on the edge of the world, about to tumble into a black hole that could timewarp me to another universe or wipe me out completely. Some of the simplest things to do have been the hardest: selling our raw wood-and-skin drums and untreated wicker furniture, parting with old books and favourite pot plants (some of which have accompanied me since student days), forcing our children to let go of at least some of their numerous toys, finding a home for our cats and - topping the charts - meeting my first and only newborn nephew Finn for the first and almost the last time in a long while. The first goodbyes took me by surprise: a month ago, friends from afar on an annual visit to town reminded me that this was the last time we'd meet. The scheduled goodbyes are proving no easier - we refused to make speeches at our Family Farewell lunch today, but that didn't stop the tears from threatening an impromptu appearance when it was time to collect the empty platters and head on home.
Yet on and on the rollercoaster hurtles. Tomorrow we start sorting the boxes of stuff that have accumulated in our spare room; next week I close my practice, part with my cats and host a Bilbo-esque bonfire farewell for friends and colleagues; in two weeks' time I'll be living out of a suitcase in preparation for the trip eastwards. Living in the moment mixes in a psychadelic swirl with visions of the future. Memories of childhood rituals, invoked by last-time lunches with my cousins and sessions of sorting and filing old photographs, eddy and whirl with diaphanous images of reunions in a foreign home (what an oxymoron!) and family photographs yet-to-be. Some of my friends tell me they could not do what I've done; others have already done it. My journey is that of an approximate 175 million migrants currently living in the world - hardly unique. Yet to myself and my children, and those closest to us, it is a journey taken for the first time: an adventure into the frontiers of time and space and humanity, where everything is unknown, despite the aids that technology and information and wisdom can provide.
And I suppose that is what makes our journey so attractive: in this world where everything has been done, and where every discovery becomes so quickly jaded; where we long for instant gratification, quick fixes and the American sitcom 'happily ever after', this is an adventure that doesn't end when we turn off the TV or drain the sauvignon blanc. It doesn't end once we land in the home we've only ever seen in the Lord of the Rings. It doesn't even begin there. It is ongoing, as it has always been: only now, we are acutely aware of it, like that first gasp of air after being underwater too long.
And what a breath it is. As Bilbo Baggins says, on that penultimate journey of his,
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Penny
Why New Zealand?
Today Rob Scott (Penny's uncle) asked me: "Tell my why you have decided on New Zealand without mentioning anything negative about SA that does not apply to NZ." What an intriquing question. It requires us to justify our choice in terms of the presence of something in NZ (eg. good education that is affordable for the average parent) that cannot be found in SA rather than the absence of something in NZ that can be found in SA (eg. high violent crime rate, unemployment, poverty, corruption, etc). I list here 10 of the most NB points for us.
- Fantastic career opportunities for psychologists (for those interested see http://www.psych-recruitment.com/).
- Very good schooling (7th best in the world) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_New_Zealand], sponsored by the state (taxpayers).
- Public health system that works (anecdotal evidence from friends living there), sponsored by the state (taxpayers).
- Taxpayers comprise 96.2% of the tax payable population (3.8 % unemployment).
- Plenty of clean water (available as rain or in taps).
- A 2050 green energy strategy [see http://www.shapenz.org.nz/energy2050/content.asp?id=365].
- Consistent, predictable electricity supply.
- 4.2 million people in total (vs 40.1 million sheep, 2006 stats).
- Number 4 (out of 140) on the global peace index: have a look at the following website: http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/rankings/2008/
- Climate: temperate, conducive to outdoor living and recreation, see http://www.tourism.net.nz/new-zealand/about-new-zealand/weather-and-climate.html#climate.
Willem
Monday, August 4, 2008
In search of Zeal
Forty-seven days to go and the stress is mounting. Our container leaves in 15 days. Gulp. In between there are clients to finish off with, a vast number of companies and people to notify of our change of address, contracts to terminate, deposits to claim, cars to sell, NZ dollars to buy, debt payments to arrange, tax issues to sort out, loved ones to say goodbye to, and so on and so on.
This year furthermore presented us with numerous challenges: the death of a beloved pet, friends and family members dealing with cancer, a nephew being born, houses sold and built, migrations, emigrations, changes of schools and jobs, and attempting to finish a PhD at the same time. Are we still sane? Of course not.
So why are we going? To find new zeal and a new life. Out with the old, in with the new. I could present you with a neat list of all the things we don't like about SA and an equally long list of things we like about New Zealand and when you look at the lists it seems obvious, but I am not going to do that. It's cliched and not necessarily true. Any list can be jiggled till it tells you what you want to hear. Instead, I will stick to my story that we have run out of zeal and need more and what has a more promising prospect than New Zealand?
And so we live on, absorbing the pain of loss and embracing the hope of gain. And in this blog we'll share with you - for fun, for information, and for connection - the story of our adventure.
Willem
This year furthermore presented us with numerous challenges: the death of a beloved pet, friends and family members dealing with cancer, a nephew being born, houses sold and built, migrations, emigrations, changes of schools and jobs, and attempting to finish a PhD at the same time. Are we still sane? Of course not.
So why are we going? To find new zeal and a new life. Out with the old, in with the new. I could present you with a neat list of all the things we don't like about SA and an equally long list of things we like about New Zealand and when you look at the lists it seems obvious, but I am not going to do that. It's cliched and not necessarily true. Any list can be jiggled till it tells you what you want to hear. Instead, I will stick to my story that we have run out of zeal and need more and what has a more promising prospect than New Zealand?
And so we live on, absorbing the pain of loss and embracing the hope of gain. And in this blog we'll share with you - for fun, for information, and for connection - the story of our adventure.
Willem
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